US 'kidnapped' first lady's nephews

The speaker of Venezuela's National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, accused the United States Monday of kidnapping two of First Lady Cilia Flores's nephews who were arrested on drug charges.

The comments from the powerful lawmaker, who is President Nicolas Maduro's second-in-command in the ruling socialist party, were the first reaction from Venezuelan officials to the arrest of the two men in Haiti last week and their extradition to the US.

"I don't see it as an arrest," Cabello said in an interview with private TV channel Globovision.

"A plane went to Haiti with six people and they kidnapped two people."

Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 29, and Francisco Flores de Freitas, 30, were charged in federal court in New York Thursday with conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

The duo allegedly took part in meetings in Venezuela regarding a shipment of cocaine that was to be sent to the United States via Honduras, the indictment said.

Cabello criticized the US Drug Enforcement Administration's actions in the case.

"It's very irregular what the DEA has done in this case. It's the DEA's normal procedure to kidnap people in a lot of places," he said.

Prosecutors in New York, Washington and Miami are reportedly investigating alleged drug-trafficking and money-laundering by a slate of top Venezuelan military, police and government officials -- including Cabello.

Alleged political motives

The charges against Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas come at a time when US-Venezuelan ties are already fraught.

Cabello called the US arrests a bid to "damage" the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) as it heads into tough legislative elections in three weeks.

With the South American oil giant mired in economic crisis, opinion polls show the opposition poised to win control of the National Assembly in the December 6 vote for the first time since Maduro's mentor, late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999.

"I guarantee you that's all going to be clarified," Cabello said of the alleged political motivation for the charges, vowing legal action would be taken against media groups that reported on the drug trafficking accusations.

He also rejected international media reports that one of the arrested men, Campo Flores, was raised by Maduro as his stepson.

"I can assure you that's a lie, but it's not my place to say so," he said.

He said "at least one" of the men was not in fact related to the influential first lady -- though a Venezuelan political source had told AFP that both are indeed her nephews.

Cabello said he expected Maduro and his wife, herself a former speaker of the National Assembly, were waiting until their own inquiries had been carried out before reacting to the case.

He said he had no indication that Venezuelan authorities had information on drug trafficking by the two suspects.

"As far as I know, no. I don't have any information (on the men's activities), beyond what a person can do who also happens to be an adult and free to do whatever he likes," he said.

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